Your Secret Test Automation Team
Dec 28, 2023
Hello there, CTO-person reading this; you're looking sharp today. Or, if you're an engineering manager, senior dev, dev, junior dev, tester, student, or random person who clicked the wrong link, nice t-shirt!
Strap in because beans are about to spill, cats are about to vacate bags, and games will be given away!
But first, we need to lay some groundwork.
What would an Automation Test team look like?
Well, it would consist of one or more Automation Testers. This only begs the question: What does an Automation Tester look like? Which is a stupid question!
We should ask, what makes up an Automation Tester besides the very-squishy and not-so-squishy pieces wrapped in skin?
An Automation tester needs 2 or 3 things, depending on how complex you want to make things.
One) A tester's mindset. That special something that compels someone to quickly click a button more times than any "normal" person or urges them to click Back right after clicking The Buy Now Button.
TWO) The knowledge to turn "The Buy Now Button" into something a computer can understand. These will likely be CSS selectors, or if you have a Microsoft Zune in a drawer somewhere, XPath selectors.
You might be thinking, "Hey, I have a manual tester with a tester's mindset AND a frontend developer who can do that other thing".
Nice work! You've guessed the punchline to this piece! But I'll continue anyway because I did say 2 or 3 things, and I've only given you the first two parts. mwahahaha
Meet your secret Automation Test team.
50% Frontend Developer, 50% behavioral *cough* manual *cough* Tester.
Now, you could buy them a gift card to a romantic restaurant and see where it goes, crossing your fingers and waiting patiently for several years for your investment to possibly pay off. Or you could split the work in two and get the bang for your buck right now!
Ask your frontend developer(s) to create the page objects for a given page or ask them to provide this as part of the standard practice (definition of done).
With the right tool, your behavioral tester can use these alone with simple commands like "Touch" or "Set Value" to create automation tests for everything they currently have to do manually.
Think of this as introducing Patrick to Spongebob, uniting Mario and Luigi, or add a Buzz to your Woody.
Did you catch the 3rd part?
You need the right tool. I won't say there's only one option here; several options exist. The important thing is that your selectors must be easily maintainable, and the tool must be simple enough to allow someone without a coding background to ultimately script tests.
Split beans
There you have it, the secret automation test team you already have.
Your front-enders can create selectors so fast that keystrokes will produce a unified BBBBRRRRRRR. They may also start adding testIds, making this even quicker for themselves while accidentally improving overall quality.
Your testers will likely want to bridge any knowledge gaps and take steps toward reducing manual regression monotony and, of course, the pay increases that come with learning automation testing.
Of course, a dedicated automation test team would be better, but hey, bug-free code that never regresses would still be better still.
The secret is you have everything you need to make progress.
In the tech world, where challenges are plenty and bugs lurk in the dark (mode), your dynamic duo and their newfound sidekick (DoesQA) are here to save the day. Embrace the power of your team, laugh in the face of bugs, and let the automation adventure begin... via a completely free trial.
